Hope the victims of this accident are soon returned to good health.

Opens up a number of possible topics--but maybe it would be best to wait until the dust has cleared, and we have a full report from the police about what happened.

[Post removed.]

Indeed, CPD: "a car driven by an elderly male hit several tables outside the coffee shop at 271 University Ave. at around 12:36 p.m."

I am so sorry for the victims and the driver.

was the driver parking his car? how else could he have gotten past the row of parked cars?

Drivers over 75 should have an annual road test. This type of accident is happening way too often.

These incidents (including the recent one in Menlo Park) wouldn't happen if the city removed the free parking next to busy sidewalks. Or at least build bigger barriers than just a small curb.

This is sad. No doubt about it. But now there will be yet another reason for some people to ask council to ban cars everywhere in Palo Alto.

We all lose, due to the poor actions of others. There is no way I would ever get on a bicycle and public transport is expensive and not convenient anywhere in the Bay Area.

If cars parked parallel outside cafes that might minimize the risk - else put up big concrete plant pots or barriers to stop traffic accidents. It's too easy for an elderly person with an automatic transmission to hit the accelerator instead of the brake. Also need to prevent crashes from terrorists or trucks.

@ Pedestrian - your proposal may solve some of these accidents, but not all. Why should the city have to spend millions of dollars because of an issue with elderly drivers?

@ Angela - the accident in MP last year was at a parallel parking area. Not so sure that is the answer.

The easier answer is to implement mandatory driving tests for senior citizens. This would then increase safety throughout the state and in any situation - not just a local downtown district.

Yes, elder drivers should have annual driving tests. Not only do they have time to wait in line at the DMV :) but there are many elderly who should not be driving. Sure, they could pass and still be terrible drivers, but at least it's some filter.

It's an accident, but this driver should be hit in the pocketbook for negligence.

5 years ago, Great America allowed children to avoid wearing lifevests until a negligent mom didn't supervise her son and he died, which ruined it for all the other kids because thereafter, bulky lifevests were mandatory for young children.

I honestly don't know the percentage of accidents that are caused by the "elderly"-vs-the young ones. But I do know this: too many drivers, irregardless of age, are in too much of a hurry and/or are driving "distracted." All of us need to slow down, pay more attention and most of all, never, ever drive while using a handheld device.

I hope that the injured will make a full and speedy recovery.

I have consciously avoided outdoor dining in areas where there are no barriers for the cars.My practice shouldn't have to become widespread. Cities should do more to protect pedestrians and diners, and of course so should the DMV.

One of the advantages of large tires on SUV's and trucks is that you can drive right over the curb when parallel parking and then slip back down. So higher curbs aren't going to prevent some vehicles from driving on the sidewalk.

Prayers for the injured.
This problem involves us all. It is very difficult to get the unsafe drivers off the road.

It took me years to get my elderly mom to stop driving after she started showing signs of dementia. Her doctor reported her to the DMV and lshe couldn't pass the test and had to stop driving.she was furious for years but O was so relived she didn't hurt anyone.

Insurance companies should mandate rigorous testing and adjust premiums to match the risk.

Now we have Uber and other more affordable ride options to help nondrivers.

I am 85 and strongly favor an annual road test for all drivers 75 or older.

From a former Palo Alto resident.

I am 85 and strongly favor a road test for all drivers 75 or older.

From a former Palo Alto resident.

"One of the advantages of large tires on SUV's and trucks is that you can drive right over the curb when parallel parking and then slip back down. So higher curbs aren't going to prevent some vehicles from driving on the sidewalk. "

Note that this accident involved a mid-sized Nissan sedan, not an SUV. The accident in MP involved a mid-sized BMW sedan.

@ Crescent Park Dad

You responded to Angela as follows: “the accident in MP last year was at a parallel parking area. Not so sure that is the answer.”

That incident was in front of Walgreens on Santa Cruz, a diagonal parking zone.

That is what is called parallel parking.

Parallel parking is when your doors are next to the curb. Angle parking is when the front of the car is next to the curb. The Menlo Park accident last year was at an angle parking spot. The one today was a parallel parking spot. It's much easier to jump the curb and go up on the sidewalk in an angle spot. In a parallel spot you are more likely to hit the car in front or behind if you do too much acceleration.

What can I do when the doctor says my Mom is just fine to drive, but she can't remember what I talked to her about yesterday?? She has stopped driving at night and on the freeway, but she lives in a place that has no Uber or Lift and few very expensive taxis.

The DMV says older drivers are far more likely to be involved in crashes than anyone. If you adjust for miles driven, since teenagers drive more miles, older drivers turn out to be by far the riskiest. DMV recommends they have more frequent tests. Residents at Maybell were castigated for being concerned about elder driver safety, but since the high-density rezoning of that spot right on the crowded, narrow safe routes to school was being justified because of the age of the residents saying they would create less traffic, it sure seems like the safety of the age group should have been a topic of discussion. Yet even when it's highly relevant, it sure seems like a 3rd rail.

Maybe we should be concerned about this as a community. Especially since, as we now have found, Palo Alto has twice the percentage of older residents compared to average California communities. And our construction in recent years have made for almost nonexistent sidewalks with walls for buildings such as at Miki's Market. (I noticed the grill on the leading edge of that building was already bent from being hit within the first 6 months.)

On the other hand, and I know I'm going to take flak for this, but... to muttiallen... depending on the kinds of memory issues your mom has, she may indeed be able to drive just fine, even if she has short-term memory issues. Not being able to remember what you said yesterday really has nothing to do with her remembering how to drive which she learned a long time ago and is probably unaffected. Her response times are probably the greater problem at this point, if she already recognizes she can't drive on the freeway.

Prayers for all the injured. The saving grace is at least they were moments from the hospital.

How liable is the restaurant for what happened?

From PAPD's Facebook page: Here's an update on the injuries sustained by the people involved in this afternoon's injury collision in downtown Palo Alto. Fortunately, no injuries appear to be life-threatening, although two people are requiring surgery.

Four of the five injured people on the sidewalk were actually seated at outdoor tables at the cafe. One of these people is a male in his thirties, who has injuries to his lower legs that require surgery. The other person requiring surgery is a man in his seventies who has injuries to his legs and back. The other seated cafe patrons are a woman in her sixties and a man in his twenties, both of whom sustained abrasions and scrapes to various locations on their bodies.

The fifth injured person on the sidewalk, a man in his thirties, was walking by the cafe when he was struck. He sustained a laceration to his head.

The driver of the involved vehicle, a man in his 90s from San Jose, has an abrasion to one of his arms, likely due to airbag deployment.

No additional information on anyone's condition or their identity will be released, as is standard procedure for collision investigations.

Thank you to our friends and coworkers at the Palo Alto Fire Department for their fast response and hard work on all of these patients! Thanks also to our friends at the City of Los Altos Police Department, who provided personnel assistance with the investigation.
Here's an update on the injuries sustained by the people involved in this afternoon's injury collision in downtown Palo Alto. Fortunately, no injuries appear to be life-threatening, although two people are requiring surgery. Four of the five injured people on the sidewalk were actually seated at outdoor tables at the cafe. One of these people is a male in his thirties, who has injuries to his lower legs that require surgery. The other person requiring surgery is a man in his seventies who has injuries to his legs and back. The other seated cafe patrons are a woman in her sixties and a man in his twenties, both of whom sustained abrasions and scrapes to various locations on their bodies. The fifth injured person on the sidewalk, a man in his thirties, was walking by the cafe when he was struck. He sustained a laceration to his head. The driver of the involved vehicle, a man in his 90s from San Jose, has an abrasion to one of his arms, likely due to airbag deployment. No additional information on anyone's condition or their identity will be released, as is standard procedure for collision investigations. Thank you to our friends and coworkers at the Palo Alto Fire Department for their fast response and hard work on all of these patients! Thanks also to our friends at the City of Los Altos Police Department, who provided personnel assistance with the investigation.

To report a potentially unsafe driver, go to this Department of Motor Vehicles website for the information and the form to fill out:

Web Link

You can also write a letter and/or call a Driver Safety Branch Office listed on the above-given DMV website.

I looked up driver-caused accidents ranked by age on the AAA website, and the statistics don't agree with most comments here.

By the stats, the best way to reduce driver-caused crashes would be to raise the driving age bottom limit back to 18. From that age driver-caused crash rates slowly decrease until age 70, when they slowly start increasing--but drivers in their mid-80s have crash rates the same as drivers in their early 20s.

The problem is that those drivers in their early 20s can pass a driving test just fine, because during the test they probably won't be texting or drinking or road raging. So a driving test won't filter out the most dangerous younger drivers. However, a more stringest license suspension policy--coupled with criminal liability for driving on a suspended license--might make a difference.

Web Link

Here's the relevant text:

>>Driver-based crash rates were
highest for drivers ages 16-17 and decreased
until ages 60-69, at which point they
essentially leveled off. Mileage-based crash ra
tes were by far the highest for the youngest
drivers, decreased with increasing age until ag
es 60-69, and increased slightly thereafter,
such that drivers in their 70’s were involved
in approximately the same number of crashes
per mile driven as drivers in their 30’s, dr
ivers ages 80-84 had mileage-based crash rates
similar to drivers ages 25-59, and drivers ag
es 85 and older had mileage-based crash rates
similar to drivers ages 20-24. Rates of driver
injuries, and injuries and deaths of other
people outside of the driver’s vehicle (occupant
s of other vehicles, pedestrians, etc.) tended
to follow patterns similar to those of overall
crash involvement. Drivers ages 85 and older
had the highest rates of (their own) death per
driver and per mile driven; however, this was
largely due to their diminished ability to su
rvive a crash rather than to their increased
crash rate. In relation to the amount of driv
ing that they did, drivers aged 85 and older
posed about as much risk to other people outs
ide of their vehicle as drivers in their early
20’s did. In relation to their share of the dr
iving population, fewer other people were killed
in crashes involving drivers ages 85 and
older than drivers of any other age.<<

What is the status of the previously announced city review of businesses that are not in compliance with city regulation for sidewalk tables? One safety policy should be the nature of parking in front of businesses. It seems to me that parallel parking is much safer than angle parking.

Parallel parking is not a panacea. I observed one such sidewalk drive over on the sidewalk across from the Aquarius Theater a few years ago on a busy weekend evening. Vehicle crashed into the print shop window and missed all the pedestrians.

I don't think annual road tests will completely solve this problem. The older brain has "senior moments" as well as accumulated wisdom and experience. A momentary sputter, when you forget which pedal does which thing, who is this person talking to you, where did I put those presents, and so on. Sorry, no good suggestions from me. This gas vs. brake thing is fairly common, unfortunately.

I was referring to info from the DMV, a more primary source. The following exhaustive report from the CA DMV on teen and senior drivers gives a more mixed picture than you suggest. And most of the good news you could cite about older drivers goes away and spikes dramatically usually after age 85, the group to which this driver belonged.
Web Link

"For combined sexes, mileage-adjusted fatal accident rates decline from the teenage years, reaching a low point that is sustained from ages 30-34 through ages 65-69. They rise after that, with the male rate at ages 85 and above exceeding, and that for combined sexes equaling, the rate for teenagers." Your average 90-year-old is a bigger risk of a fatal or injury crash than an 18-year-old high school student, and we could put a different spin on it by pointing out the 18-year-old is more likely to survive a crash than any other group.

As you accurately point out, seniors are more likely to be hurt in a crash than others, but mileage-adjusted rates are considered a better indicator of *judgment* on the road, and seniors tank around age 85. And it also doesn't tell much about who is more likely to hit pedestrians or cyclists in different kinds of accidents, as was the case here and in Menlo.

The DMV cites one study that shows mostly "seniors" are not a greater risk to others - but they are basically talking about drivers in their 55 and up category, it's worse for the oldest drivers. The curves almost always bend up around age 85 in a u-shape.

To that the DMV says, "On driving tests, elderly drivers on average performed worse on maneuvers, vehicle handling, safe driving practices, observing, and “driver processing” (that is, gap selection, lane changing, and speed control), when compared to drivers who were younger"
And,
"The relative importance of right-of-way violations is not great for drivers under age 75, but thereafter it remains fairly high. These violations are the second-highest generator of citations for the oldest (85+) group.
• Even at advanced ages, right-of-way violations are either overshadowed or closely rivaled by signs/signals violations and speeding. This is despite the important role of right-of-way violation as a primary collision factor in casualty accidents."

So, grandpa really does think he owns the road, and is less likely (as shown in other data) to respond well to the unexpected. The kinds of risks at play here and in the Menlo crash do happen to be where the most elderly drivers fare badly relative to others. (All possibly at play here more than anything from general statistics that are mostly the result of the fact that teens speed more.)

Instead of annual driving tests, I think the following might be more helpful for testing ALL ages.

1. A computerized dynamic driver test. This could test rules of the road, response times, judgement, courtesy and most things important to real driving. This is so doable with today's technology. Look at our 3D games.

2. A computerized brain test that ferrets out confusion issues. Because confusion as in hitting the wrong pedal is what is primarily needed as folks age. Again, this can be administered via computer. It's very common for elderly to use the wrong word etc. But - there are people much younger than 90 with these problems also.

We should filter out those not capable of safe driving at ANY age.

None of these computerized tests would require more manpower in the DMV office.

"Honor" said this ...

>> too many drivers, irregardless of age, are in too much of a hurry and/or are driving "distracted." All of us need to slow down, pay more attention and most of all, never, ever drive while using a handheld device.

Hard to disagree with that, but I don't think it will ever happen. I imagine we can look forward for the future of people getting more and more distracted, and even when bad things happen we will continue to ignore them or make cosmetic token attempts to stop them just so we do not really have to think about what's going on.

The better way to prevent these things is to never underestimate the ability of human beings to screw up and in designing go out of the way, at least in crowded spaces where it is justified and cost effective to idiot proof the environment. In this case poles or concrete barriers.

A similar thing almost happened to me in Mountain View when a driver in reverse drove down the street and backed into a restaurant me and a friend were eating at. A plate glass window was smashed and it was a miracle that no one was hurt seriously.

Some of our fellow citizens, that we cannot reliably identify apparently cannot get the hang of managing their attention balanced against safety. Here is another case where we have to overdesign things for the lowest common denominator. No wonder government costs so much, the only way we seem able to exclude anyone from anything is by the amount of money they have .... not rationality or merit.

Just to comment on the senior issue, yes, statistically people drive worse as they get into their twilight years, but many drive OK.

It's discrimination to treat elderly people different in terms of driving, even if the stats indicate it might be valid ... in another discussion this is racial profiling.

Now we use the number of tickets people get as an indicator of driving competency ... but that assumes an equal opportunity for everyone to get a ticket when they make a mistake, and an equal enforcement of the law ... and we all know this is not true.

Our regulation of driving was based on not much of a working system, and that it works less and less as time goes by for various reasons.

I see people in Palo Alto every day when I drive who cannot stay in their lane. I never used to see that - now it is every time I drive. It's not just old people either.

Some 21st century discussion about the statistical sampling and validity of traffic policing should be happening at the state or federal level.

I wonder if building cheap parking on the periphery of the city and then have the city supply self-driving people mover cars to destinations would allow smaller streets, more downtown real estate and business while removing driving from the equation. Sci Fi getting closer.

Yesterday's accident poses a conundrum if ever there was one. I wish that I had an easy answer, and handy bromide as it were; I don't.

In an earlier posting I addressed the issue of "driving distracted", a condition/situation that I will continue to champion. Its become a growing problem and unless and until more people speak up, then it will surely run rampant as Bru suggested. I'm just naive enough perhaps to think that educating, constantly education drivers, that we'll keep that horrible habit at bay at least. What happened on University Ave. yesterday is an entirely different matter.

I suppose the best any of us can do is to personally monitor people within our reach (family and friends), and if we feel as though their driving habits are no longer safe, intervene. That's right. Speak up, voicing your concern for their safety as well as that of others. Point out the hazards of causing an accident, that sort of thing. Don't expect hugs and kisses in return, but you might be saving some lives. Offer rides. Run errands. "Call the cops" if necessary, meaning notify the DMV, that person's family, even their doctor.

RE-POST OF PRIOR INFO:

To report a potentially unsafe driver, go to this Department of Motor Vehicles website for the information and the form to fill out:

Web Link

You can also write a letter and/or call a Driver Safety Branch Office listed on the above-given DMV website.

Good thoughts to the victims and the driver for complete recovery of their injuries

It's odd, there's always a cry to take away the licenses of the elderly when there's an incident, but when teenagers get into accidents when texting or drinking, it's a different story. It's true that reactions lessen with age, but questionable decisions are often made at younger ages. Every day when driving I see young drivers looking down (presumably at phones), or driving erratically. I guess the elderly are an easer target.

>> It's discrimination to treat elderly people different in terms of driving, even if the stats indicate it might be valid ... in another discussion this is racial profiling.

People under 18 years of age are not allowed to have passengers that are under 18 - isn't that also (age) discrimination?

There's nothing racial in this...

"It's odd, there's always a cry to take away the licenses of the elderly when there's an incident, but when teenagers get into accidents when texting or drinking, it's a different story. "

So someone not paying attention and having an accident is worse than someone who IS paying attention, but lacks the mental and physical abilities to control their vehicle.

Interesting position.

Sparty,

Yes, in some ways it is worse precisely because they are young and alert, and drinking and texting are avoidable. (I would be curious to see the number of accidents involving the elderly vs. teenagers, or those in their twenties.)

My position is that anyone incapable of driving safely should be off the road, regardless of age.